Centerline, Michigan, 1950s
Given that Centerline, Michigan, isn’t that big and therefore doesn’t have too many roads as wide as the one seen in the above photo that we came across on Annualmobiles, it didn’t take too long to use the street number at the top of the Used Cars sign to narrow down the location to the corner of 53 and 10 Mile Road, which nowadays looks nothing like the above – even the water tower’s gone. But there was plenty of carspotting to be had with the cars on the street and in the Studebaker-slash-used car dealership. What do you see here?
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I see 3 or 4 cars at the most with white walls, unlike the 99 out of 100 cars that you see these days at car shows with white walls.
Every time I click on the current view link on these posts I get the itch to get back on the road again.
What a wonderful glimpse into the past! Judging by what I can see, this was just about the time I was born.
I’m going to back it up, just a little bit. I think that shoebox Ford on the street is a 51.
Seen this one before; I could car-spot all day on this one. However, time being what it is, I will be brief. The poor old `37 Chevy in the foreground has seen better days with its caved-in grille. Obviously lots of late-models Studes on the used-car lot, plus a nice `49 DeSoto cvt., `48 Packard getting the spot-light on the front corner; and a `46 (?) Hudson sedan at the curb.
Too bad we cant see the showroom; 40′s car dealerships were always full of late art-deco styling touches.
The lot would have been on the NWC of 10 Mile and Van Dyke (where a drive-in bank is now). Many of the houses in the vintage picture still stand, on Wyland St.
Newest cars I see are 1950 (Dodge, Chevy, Ford, Studie).
In the early 1950′s my father bought a 1937 Chevy 2-door sedan like the beat-up one shown here, removed the body from the cowl back, and used it to run a big welder that he mounted onto the frame.
The white on black Michigan plates are 1949, 1951, or 1953. Judging by the cars I see, I’m thinking 1951 for the photo date. The 1950 Dodge convertible sure looks shiny and new, more so than the same-year Ford convertible out on the street. The car lot has quite a wide selection of makes and models. I do see one long-roofed light-colored Studebaker Land Cruiser sedan, probably a 1949, on the front row. Leave it to Studebaker to have their fanciest car be a long-wheelbase 4-door sedan rather than the 2-door hardtops most other makers had at the time.